Alk didn't drop at all in 24 hours

[Jake_the_reefer]

So lately I have been dosing alkalinity and testing daily to get my daily dose. Just as I was able to get the perfect dose down the weirdest thing happened.
Every night when I test at 10pm alk is 7.4 exactly. Then I dose to get up to 8.1
Rinse and repeat
Well when I did my test today I got an 8.0 meaning almost no alkalinity was consumed. This was confirmed with salifert test and hanna.

My 20g also has a weird pattern. I cannot for the life of me get a daily consumption. Some days it drops .3 some .6 some .1 I have no clue why I cant get a good read on this tank.

Back to the 10g tank. What can cause alk to not lower at all in a 24 hr period? My corals are all open and super happy as well

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Calcium is 410 if that matters as well in the 10g

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Did you test at the same time? My bet is that it was testing error.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Did you test at the same time? My bet is that it was testing error.

10 pm every night. Heres my test schedule with my nightly doses

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

10 pm every night. Heres my test schedule with my nightly doses

Only thing I can think is somehow I dosed too much last night in a tired daze. I worked 16 hours so I could have doubled my normal dose. ( I just ordered jebao dosing pumps so I can get the same dose every night)

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

Coral can also take a break growing and not consume much if any at all. This happens regularly in my tanks. Currently my SPS tank is at a standstill and like clockwork it will jump off again in the near future. Hope this helps.

 

[Tyler White]

Coral can also take a break growing and not consume much if any at all. This happens regularly in my tanks. Currently my SPS tank is at a standstill and like clockwork it will jump off again in the near future. Hope this helps.

Im glad its not just me!

 

[Punchanello]

My experience so far is that alkalinity take up is not always consistent. Any number of factors could change consumption including corals just taking a break. I suspect this might be a bit less dramatic in a much larger, heavily stocked system where the different consumption rates of corals might average themselves out but in smaller systems it's worth keeping check on.

You are doing the right thing testing every night because anything can happen.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Any change in phosphate or nitrates? Lighting?

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Any change in phosphate or nitrates? Lighting?

Phos has been constant less than .05 and nitrate is between 1ppm and 5. Lighting has been same for a few months. After checking last night. It dropped its same .6 dkh as usual which is so odd to me because that means it went 24 hrs without any drops

 

[BeejReef]

Same experience as others. Once in a while the corals seem to take a day off of growing. Not sure if it's cyclical, or maybe it's a "hands in the tank" thing.

Your numbers are all pretty darn close to the margin of error. That's one of the hard parts of daily testing and hand dosing. What helped me was a set dose, whether by hand or by doser. You might go with a conservative set daily dose, continue to test daily, but only adjust your dose up or down after the tank shows you a three day trend. It takes a lot of the volatility and headache out of the process.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Phos has been constant less than .05 and nitrate is between 1ppm and 5. Lighting has been same for a few months. After checking last night. It dropped its same .6 dkh as usual which is so odd to me because that means it went 24 hrs without any drops

That rules out starving corals then.

Glad to see they are back to consuming alk.

I agree with getting a doser. They make this so much easier and precise. I got two of the kamoer x1 Bluetooth dosers. So far so good! I am able to make very small changes to dosing with them.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Same experience as others. Once in a while the corals seem to take a day off of growing. Not sure if it's cyclical, or maybe it's a "hands in the tank" thing.

Your numbers are all pretty darn close to the margin of error. That's one of the hard parts of daily testing and hand dosing. What helped me was a set dose, whether by hand or by doser. You might go with a conservative set daily dose, continue to test daily, but only adjust your dose up or down after the tank shows you a three day trend. It takes a lot of the volatility and headache out of the process.

The good thing with my dosing schedule would be is that it raises dkh by .6 every day so if they take another day off it wont spike my alk much at all.